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Of course, I'm talking about the dog, 2nd fastest land animal on Earth (1st is the cheetah). They can accelerate from a standstill to 40 mph in six strides.
Retired racers make great pets; "world's fastest couch potato" is a common description  .
Software Zen: delete this;
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Obviously! 
0 to 40mph in six strides, that is something. Did you ever calculate the acceleration in terms of g load? And also, how much kinetic energy does he gain in those six strides, in how short time - or in other words, how many watts of effect does he produce to do that acceleration?
Animals can display some amazing capabilities, and if you sit down and do the math, it sometimes goes from amazing to truly unbelievable.
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trønderen wrote: Did you ever calculate the acceleration in terms of g load?
No, but he develops considerable momentum (he weighs around 75 pounds). When we first got him it took a while to find a fencing contractor, so we put him outside on a steel cable attached to a tree to use the bathroom. We bought a collar that included plastic hardware, but was guaranteed for large dogs - 100 pounds and up. One day he caught sight of a cat, took off running, reached the end of the cable, and did not stop. The collar hardware shattered and off he went. Fortunately I was watching and chased off after him. The good news was he still needed to pee and when he stopped to do that I caught up to him.
Software Zen: delete this;
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Gary Wheeler wrote: One day he caught sight of a cat, took off running, reached the end of the cable, and did not stop.
We may be sidetracking quite a bit here, but ...
My dogs, several years ago, were great teddy bears, but not exactly greyhounds ... They were St.Bernhards, 75-80 kg (and at that time, that was lightweight, for a St.Bernhard!). My first dog of course couldn't follow a cat making twists and turns, but he could get into speed down a straight street.
He did, getting into considerable speed. The cat jumped into a lawn, and he followed. The lawn had an area protected by a dense fir hedgerow. The cat flew under it. My 80 St.Bernhard tried to do the same. The earth shook. It is a great wonder none of the the hedge firs were pulled up by the root.
Anyone claiming that animals have no feelings, can feel no shame, have never seen my dog that day. His tail was so tightly pressed against his belly that the tip almost reached his mouth. He refused to look me in the eye for at least an hour or two, searching for corners where he could hide.
I guess our laughs (we did laugh!) didn't improve matters. But after all, we were his pack, so he gradually realized that our comforting strokes were honest signs of unity and support, and he relaxed.
I believe that this episode was essential to strengthen the bonds between him and us as a pack. OK, so we did laugh when it happened, but he showed his feelings to us, and we clearly signaled: Yet you are one of us! We are still accepting you, we will comfort you. Straighten up, you are a good boy!
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That poor baby... 
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I once had a Fox Terrier who could do 30 mph, timed and verified.
He too had a sense of shame. Once went for a cat sitting in the distance and when the cat was unperturbed he ran straight past and into some bushes, fossicking around while telling me that there had been something there just now.
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They are amazing to watch when they do zoomies, we have a few rescues (ex racers) that walk the beach with us in the morning, poor bloody labs just watch on in consternation of the flying streaks as they tear up and down the sand having a great time.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity -
RAH
I'm old. I know stuff - JSOP
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Mycroft Holmes wrote: they tear up and down the sand having a great time
The joy they feel when they run is amazing. When I first adopted Bacchus, we thought like everyone else; they had to be 'forced' to run and were subject to cruel treatment if they didn't. Nothing could be further from the truth. You haven't seen real joy until you've watched them. Even when they're very old and reduced to a slow trot, they love running.
That's why I refer to Bacchus as a retired racer rather than a rescue. He's a professional athlete who retired due to an injury (broken ankle, easily fixed but no more racing). His trainer called us twice after we adopted him to see how he was doing. Those folks love these animals; that's not cruelty.
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Sleeps up to 20 hours a day, runs like s**t off a shovel.
Sighthounds are great.
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Brilliant! 
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My own dog is a sighthound cross (hence she's a lurcher).
Her dad was Border collie x Whippet, her mum was a husky. So low boredom threshold, lots of speed and lots of stamina. Not a handful at all!
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Alister Morton wrote: Her dad was Border collie x Whippet, her mum was a husky.
That would make her a great polar bear herder!
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Definitely has the herding instinct of the collie, most of the prey drive of the whippet and the bossiness, digging and vocalising of the husky. Never a dull moment with our Truffle.
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Alister Morton wrote: Truffle
I love the name .
My greyhound is 'Bacchus', named for the Greek/Roman god of wine and revelry. My wife loves mythology and picked the name even before we met the dog. The couple who was fostering him told us he didn't bark, he just whined when he wanted something.
Yes. He's the god of, er, whine. 
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Haha
Truffle is so named because of her colour mix - mainly white with grey and almost black splodges but some red too - she's a mix of red and blue merle.
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Bacchus is all black, the most common color in greyhounds. He's nearly ten, so his muzzle has gotten quite gray. I tell people that he's been going so fast for so long, the color is draining toward his tail.
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I usually make it a walk to the coffee machine ![Java | [Coffee]](https://codeproject.global.ssl.fastly.net/script/Forums/Images/coffee.gif)
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Yea, but I'm out of this mornings allotment of coffee. I did spill a little while getting my last cup. I looked at the spill, wondering if I was irked because I had to wipe it up, or irked because I lost that bit of the morning's last cup.
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I think it doesn't count as a full cup anymore, so you can have one more
Enjoy 
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I think most of us can relate.
>64
Some days the dragon wins. Suck it up.
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My moment was in a complicated mathematical computation. Was getting wrong results for about a week. Then one afternoon was debugging when I saw that a minus sign was keyed in as a plus sign. After that fix, all results became correct.
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Reminds me of when I took the computer graphics class in college. I had been debugging a 3D clipping algorithm for a week, and it kept failing in a weird way. One night, after I'd been in the lab for almost 40 hours straight (yes, I was insane back then), I went out to the hallway with a listing and stretched it out on the floor. I looked at it for a couple hours, chain-smoking (I was also stupid back then) the whole time.
I finally got up and started walking the hallways. After about ten minutes, the thought occurred to me to check my variable names against the original algorithm. I had used the names the algorithm used, which were unfortunately single lower-case characters. In one place, I had typed a 'b' instead of an 'h', both of which were variables in the algorithm. Go look at your keyboard; I'll wait.
Software Zen: delete this;
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Ah yes. Spreading out listings. I visualize listings on fan fold printer paper. I realize you can get a listing on sheets of paper from any modern printer, but it's just not the same.
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Sounds like a good moment. I'm a big fan of some good math code.
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